Though Paul Thomas Anderson hasn’t tackled the present in over two decades (ever since he first proved Adam Sandler could act in Punch Drunk Love), his riveting return to a contemporary setting feels deliriously attuned to our current, fractured zeitgeist like little else in our current cinematic diet. Spanning a breezy near-three-hour runtime, One Battle After Another erupts as a political powderkeg of an epic—enthralling, hilarious, and steeped in revolutionary verve for a world that desperately needs it.

Loosely inspired by author Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland, the film uncoils as a family saga about former revolutionaries on the run from a terrifyingly eccentric white supremacist. Its opening plunges into the guerrilla exploits of Bob Ferguson (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his spouse Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor). When Perfidia is captured by the salacious Lt. Col. Steven J. Lockjaw (Sean Penn), Ferguson flees with their infant daughter. Sixteen years later, a paranoid, burnt-out Ferguson clashes with his fed-up teen Willa (Chase Infinit)—until Lockjaw’s reappearance forces them back into the fight.

Marrying the nervy energy of a conspiratorial thriller with an epic comedy of errors, Anderson’s odyssey clutches at the senses and never lets go. The film is littered with hilarious detours—whether through a white-power collective dubbed the “Christmas Adventurers Club” or a paramilitary parish called “The Sisters of the Brave Beaver”—that mirror the absurdities of living in a crumbling civilization where fact is little more than opinion.

Draped in a dingy bathrobe, DiCaprio delivers some of his most memorable work as a perpetually confused but deeply concerned father, his paranoia giving way to bumbling yet exhilarating set pieces. Penn, meanwhile, brings a tragicomic menace to Lockjaw that reverberates even in absence, chilling the film’s wildest comedy with genuine dread.

With Jonny Greenwood’s anxious score underscoring gorgeous widescreen compositions that turn the open road into an enveloping nightmare, One Battle After Another lands as a radical, transgressive shock to the system. Anderson crafts counterprogramming that insists the time for change was decades ago, leaving us to pick up the pieces before they’re truly swept under the rug.

One Battle After Another is in theatres September 26